Comparative Category Analysis: Craft AC & ATD Supported by IRaMuTeQ Software

This research aimed to compare the analytical proceduresof Content Analysis, carried out artisanally, with the method of Discursive Textual Analysis, supported by the qualitative software IRaMuTeQ, to identify analytical approximations and distances between Final categories. The theme of analysis is the nuances that encompass the discussions on technology mobilized in the pedagogical disciplines of the initial training courses for science teachers. The instrument was a questionnaire applied to 86 undergraduate students of undergraduate courses in Chemistry, Physics, and Biological Sciences at two public institutions in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. We adopted the method of content analysis, performed by hand and discursive Textual analysis, supported by IRaMuTeQ software, for the emergence of the final categories. There were analytical convergences between three final categories of both methods. When the parameter is the cohesion strength of the compared categorical analysis, approximations between the procedures fall within the moderate aspect. It is emphasized that the intention of this study was not to point out which method is more effective. Creating categories that emerge from software does not cancel the procedure performed by hand; both are complementary and can bring different inferences about the same corpus. The categorical approximations from the same corpus of both methods were satisfactory to the research context.